1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stock information display method for receiving dealing business data including stock prices, commodity markets, bond prices, exchange rates, corporate information and news and for displaying various types of price data and, more particularly, to a stock information display method and an information terminal for displaying a plurality of types of stock information on the same stock.
2. Description of the Related Art
Firstly, a securities information system will be described with reference to FIG. 6 which is a system block diagram showing the securities information system.
The securities information system distributes the securities information generated at a securities exchange market to securities companies located at many places. As shown in FIG. 6, it is constituted by a computer center 1, information terminals 2, and communication lines 3. The securities information gathered by the computer center 1 is supplied to the respective information terminals 2 via the communication lines 3.
The information terminals 2 receive the supplied securities information such as stock prices and store it as stock information by type and stock; they supply the stock information to a display unit in response to a user's request so as to provide the user with the information.
The stock information on one stock includes a plurality of security types including stock, CB, finance, and settlement of accounts. There has conventionally been a display method whereby a plurality of windows are opened on the same screen to display a plurality of types of information.
Referring to FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, the conventional information terminal will be described; FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 illustrate display examples in the conventional information terminal.
As shown in FIG. 7, in the conventional information terminal, when, for example, the screen is divided into four windows to display different types of information in the respective windows, the user enters the stock to be displayed and the types of information to be displayed in the respective windows. Then, the information terminal retrieves information according to the entered stock and types and displays the retrieval results in each window. The information terminal is provided in advance with the data of the screen division patterns such as a two-window pattern and a four-window pattern.
In the case of the example illustrated in FIG. 7, the stock, CB, finance, and the settlement of accounts of Company A are respectively displayed in the four windows. The user is required to enter the stock and type in each window for retrieval, meaning that the user has to repeat four inputs and retrievals. More specifically, when the user enters the stock "Company A" and the type "stock" in the top left window first, the information terminal retrieves and displays the stock information on the stock of Company A as shown in FIG. 7 in the top left screen of response to the input by the user. The same procedure for the input, retrieval, and display is taken for all the four windows as illustrated in FIG. 7.
Further, as shown in FIG. 8, even when only the stock is changed from Company A to Company B, meaning that the screen division pattern and the types of information to be displayed shown in FIG. 7 remain unchanged, the user still has to enter the stock and the types again in the respective windows to have the stock information on Company B displayed.
Referring now to FIG. 9, the processing performed by the information terminal to display the screens shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 will be described. FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrative of the processing carried out in the controller of the conventional information terminal to display a plurality of types of information on one screen.
As shown in FIG. 9, firstly, when the user enters a division pattern (100) and also enters the stock and the types of information (102, 104), the controller retrieves the stock information stored in a memory, reads the stock information which corresponds to the entered stock and types (106), and displays the retrieved information in the first window of the selected division pattern (108).
The controller further decides whether another stock has been entered (110) and if it decides that another stock has been entered, then it goes back to the processing step 104 to perform retrieval as described above according to the input and displays the result in the next window. If no further stock has been entered in the processing step 110, then the controller terminates the processing. In this manner, the processing has been conducted by the controller in the conventional information terminal.
In the display method in the conventional information terminal, however, when the screen is divided into a plurality of windows to display different types of information on one stock on one screen, the user is required to enter the stock and type for each window for retrieval, posing a problem in that the input operation is repetitious and complicated.